Deputy Seamus Healy calls on management in the Boston Scientific Plant in Clonmel to accept a Labour Court recommendation recognising the right of workers in the Medical Devices facility to trade union representation.
The Labour Court has ruled in favour of workers in this facility being allowed to be represented by their union for the purposes of collectively bargaining on pay and working conditions. However, management has refused to implement the recommendation.
Many Boston Scientific Employees joined SIPTU following an attempt by management to unfairly deduct 20% from their shift pay. Management attempted to make this cut despite many of the workers earning less than the living wage of €11.70 per hour.
Organised in their union, the workers fought back against this attack, with more than 400 signing a petition indicating their opposition to the move. The company backed down and issued an apology to the workers.
However, new entrants are still on low pay, earning approximately €22,000 yearly. Other workers have endured a pay cap that has meant they have not received a pay rise in seven years.
It is now well beyond time that the union was recognised and industrial relations in the company put on a reasonable basis.
I again call on Boston Scientific to show respect for their employees as human beings and to grant them trade union recognition.
I will be supporting the workers on the streets of Clonmel this week on Friday 10th November and Saturday 11th November asking the public to sign a Petition supporting the call for Trade Union recognition.
Seamus Healy T.D.
Tel: 087 2802199
Tracker Mortgage Scandal
Healy Tells Taoiseach To Send In The Garda Fraud Squad.
At Leader’s Questions to Taoiseach Varadkar on Wednesday 25th October Deputy Seamus Healy said
“During Leaders Questions on 5 April this year I raised the issue of tracker mortgage fraud with the then Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny and I told him what has been appearing in the media in recent weeks.
I did not have a whistle-blower within the banking system but, rather, a healthy suspicion of senior bankers backed up by 30 years of banking scandals and rip-offs such as the DIRT scandal, the Ansbacher accounts, the bogus non-resident accounts and the destruction of the country by the banks during the boom-bust period.
I knew, as did every Irish citizen, that the banks and senior bankers have no moral compass.
The tracker mortgage fraud is a huge scandal that requires criminal investigation.
I asked the former Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, to make a formal complaint to the Garda and call in the fraud squad to investigate banks. I told him that any delay in ordering a Garda investigation could lead to the destruction or alteration or both of relevant records with a view to blaming subordinates and junior staff. In an effort to protect the banks and senior bankers, he refused to call in the Garda.
Six months later, all Members can see the extent of the massive fraud involving 15 banks and €1 billion and affecting 20,000 or more mortgage holders. It is abundantly clear that the scandal involves collusion by the banks in a systemic and widespread fraud.
It is a scandal that the Garda has still not been sent into the banks and that no formal complaint has been made to it.
Does the Taoiseach accept that if the then Taoiseach, Deputy Kenny, had agreed to my demand six months ago to send the fraud squad into the banks, much fraud could have been avoided and much trauma, pain and even deaths and self-harm prevented?
Will the Taoiseach at long last send in the Garda Fraud Squad today in order that senior bankers can be held to account? Does he accept that until senior bankers are made subject to the normal criminal fraud law, more people will become victims of this kind of bank crime?”
Seamus Healy T.D.
Tel: 087 2802199
Workers & Unemployed Action 